Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle from A to Z is complete

The head of Iran’s atomic energy organization said on television Sunday that Iran had achieved the ability to produce its own yellow cake, uranium powder that is a step in the process for creating nuclear fuel.

Ali Akbar Salehi said the breakthrough, using uranium ore mined in southern Iran, signified the country’s full self-sufficiency in the production of uranium, cutting out the need for imported material.

“The enemies and ill-wishers have always tried to create despair and disappointment among our youth, academicians, engineers and our nation, but today we witness the delivery of the first batch of yellow cake which is produced inside the country,” Salehi said at a news conference broadcast on state television. “Again Iran has shown the ill-wishers and international criminals that we are standing up to pressures and resistance is the first lesson of our revolution and we would like to assure you that we will make you regret your devilish moves.”

“Today’s announcement can have this effect that we are attending the talks with power and authority and that we do not seek favors from any party.” Salehi said.

The announcement comes on the eve of talks on Iran’s nuclear program Monday in Geneva and is probably aimed at bolstering Tehran’s bargaining position. It also follows attacks Monday on two Iranian scientists, one of them Majid Shahriari, who was killed in what Iran has described as a Western or Israeli operation.

Iranian officials immediately dismissed a U.S. proposal announced last week to create an international enriched uranium fuel bank that nations could use to create nuclear energy without mastering the fuel themselves. “It is more considered as monopolization of technology and science and nuclear apartheid,” Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh, said in Vienna on Thursday, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Iran plans to eventually build nuclear weapons in violation of its treaty obligations, a charge that Tehran denies. The United Nations Security Council has repeatedly demanded that Iran stop its nuclear fuel production program.

“Iran is searching for more uranium mines across the country,” a Tehran nuclear physicist, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Times. “Therefore the fuel cycle from A to Z is complete.”